FCC Certification ...

I note that Farnell UK declares very strong policy statements, which include:

Statement of Quality Policy (part) [my highlighting]

 

All employees will be appropriately trained so they understand fully the importance of meeting customer as well as statutory and regulatory requirements. All training will be recorded.

Top management support will be given at all levels of the business to ensure that sufficient resource is available to realise customer expectations, to ensure legal compliance and to see that the requirements of any relevant national or international standards are satisfied.

That sounds very professional, and it doesn't leave much room for misinterpretation.

So why is there so much difficulty in locating and supplying the relevant certifications that were obtained by Raspberry Pi?  Or does the above Statement of Quality Policy apply only to Farnell UK?

I note that Farnell UK declares very strong policy statements, which include:

 

Statement of Quality Policy (part) [my highlighting]

 

All employees will be appropriately trained so they understand fully the importance of meeting customer as well as statutory and regulatory requirements. All training will be recorded.

 

Top management support will be given at all levels of the business to ensure that sufficient resource is available to realise customer expectations, to ensure legal compliance and to see that the requirements of any relevant national or international standards are satisfied.

I decided to see if any of the Newark support folks on live chat have any such training

on FCC regulatory requirements.  Here's the relevant excerpt:

me:  What are you basing your opinion on? Have you been trained at all on FCC rules?

agent:  No I have not you may contact the FCC directly or you may contact the Raspberry PI foundation.

agent:  I have sent you a link for that before.

me:  Is there someone else I can chat with that has some training on FCC rules?

agent:  We are not trained on FCC rules I apologize.

me:  Is there someone else I can chat with that has some training on FCC rules?

agent:  No I am sorry we do not have anyone that is trained on that in our department.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

... claim the 'educational' high ground but focus primarily on the low ground of media centre functionality for mass appeal ...

I still like to think that RasPi Foundation really did want to push RasPi as a tool for education, but that once the technology was for sale the applications went every other way: media center as you state, but also as a cheap GNU/Linux board for hardware applications where there's a significant risk of destroying your computer.

I agree with others here who have said the problem with RasPi regarding education is that they're throwing cheap hardware at what is almost exclusively a software problem.  Most RasPi users do have access to a PC of some sort, and it's probably a whole lot more effective for them to learn about programming on that PC.  Maybe at some point RasPi will have an SD card that boots directly into a friendly programming environment without myriad lines of debugging data scrolling past first.  But for now, you're booting into a mainframe computing environment that "chooses its friends carefully".

JMO/YMMV

John Beetem wrote:

 

I agree with others here who have said the problem with RasPi regarding education is that they're throwing cheap hardware at what is almost exclusively a software problem.

Phrased that way, it almost sounded like the Foundation is using its profits to equip school classrooms.

I know you weren't saying that, but it gave rise to the idea.  If contributing directly to the software problem and to IT education is too hard or not cost effective given their limited manpower, RPF could instead pour the profits from Pi and camera sales into hardware donations.  That could be a worthwhile thing for a non-profit charity to do with profits, as some schools are desperately short of cash for equipment.

John Beetem wrote:

 

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

... claim the 'educational' high ground but focus primarily on the low ground of media centre functionality for mass appeal ...

I still like to think that RasPi Foundation really did want to push RasPi as a tool for education, but that once the technology was for sale the applications went every other way: media center as you state, but also as a cheap GNU/Linux board for hardware applications where there's a significant risk of destroying your computer.

 

I agree with others here who have said the problem with RasPi regarding education is that they're throwing cheap hardware at what is almost exclusively a software problem.  Most RasPi users do have access to a PC of some sort, and it's probably a whole lot more effective for them to learn about programming on that PC.  Maybe at some point RasPi will have an SD card that boots directly into a friendly programming environment without myriad lines of debugging data scrolling past first.  But for now, you're booting into a mainframe computing environment that "chooses its friends carefully".

 

JMO/YMMV

I'm not exactly sure when the Foundation started focussing heavily on selling their board as a hobbyist device with only vague educational connotations, but certainly by the time of the alpha boards in late 2011 Eben was busy pushing the attributes of the Videocore GPU and proudly showing the Quake demo.

I agree that hardware is not the overwhelming issue. Upton himself has stated that a possible advantage that he and his contemporaries had was (and I'm paraphrasing because Youtube is currently misbehaving here) that they had computers that would boot up, beep and he ready for programming - an integrated hardware / software environment. The current Pi paradigm is a mish-mash of wires, packages, dependencies, omnipotent server and insignificant client.

Of course, if someone really wants to be creative with computers then they will figure it out for themselves, so perhaps a paucity of programming skills among younger people points to a simple lack of interest, rather than a lack of opportunity. There are a huge amount of creative tools out there, after all, but there is also far more apparent abstraction between the applications that people see and may wish to emulate and the mechanisms by which they are created. Where do I start? Why should I even bother? It's all just so darn complicated. It's not enough to be presented with the hardware, you gotta want to dig in and create. How many people have gotten their Pi up and running, only to realise that they don't actually have a use for it? Perhaps they've never been nurtured in creativity, or been taught sound enineering principles, or been given to appreciate that mathematics is just a human creation that describes the stuff that we experience every day, Maths is art in it's purest form imo! Nope, hardware is not the answer.

Any news on the FCC certification thing, btw?

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

John Beetem wrote:

 

I agree with others here who have said the problem with RasPi regarding education is that they're throwing cheap hardware at what is almost exclusively a software problem.

Phrased that way, it almost sounded like the Foundation is using its profits to equip school classrooms.

 

I know you weren't saying that, but it gave rise to the idea.  If contributing directly to the software problem and to IT education is too hard or not cost effective given their limited manpower, RPF could instead pour the profits from Pi and camera sales into hardware donations.  That could be a worthwhile thing for a non-profit charity to do with profits, as some schools are desperately short of cash for equipment.

Charity does not exist to ensure that education is fit for purpose. Neither does it exist to prop up industry (who are the ultimate beneficiaries of education).

If the Foundation do actually intend spending some of that money I'd be happier if it was directed towards a public campaign to convince the UK taxpayer that computer science education is important and pressuring government, educational institutions and industry into providing solutions.

that's the oldest argument with computer problems :  "It's a hardware problem... No Damn it,, it is obviously a software problem "   lol 

I do appreciate you guys debating about the educational side ,,, but let's please find a compromise and keep it cheap !!   I just read an article online that a lot of schools are using an iPad base of teaching kids.. but I think that is just the educational materials of learning through the grades,,, not learning the basics of how a computer works and hooking it up and designing software to run devices.  and an iPad is not cheap.

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

That could be a worthwhile thing for a non-profit charity to do with profits, as some schools are desperately short of cash for equipment.

In the USA, a not-for-profit organization refers to money left over as a "surplus", not a "profit".  After all, how could a "not-for-profit" have a profit without running into trouble with the tax authorities?

A quick-witted friend of mine once said out loud at a NFP business meeting:

So, I guess "surplus" is the politically-correct term for "profit"

Well here's a radical  idea:  How about spending any "surplus" first  on residential FCC certification in order to comply with EMC regulations and federal law?

(Laughter track for the humour impaired:  It's an idea for those who live in a world in which compliance with FCC regulations and federal law is optional.)

Jonathan Garrish wrote:

 

Of course, if someone really wants to be creative with computers then they will figure it out for themselves, so perhaps a paucity of programming skills among younger people points to a simple lack of interest, rather than a lack of opportunity.

pretty much spot on and an excellent observation.  people tend to be much better at things they're interested in and while you can teach things by rote there's little real value in that. getting them interested is a much more complex thing

while you can teach things by rote there's little real value in that.

Funnily enough my teacher wife and another have worked out the results are hugely better by teaching new entrants the times table using rote learning.( .. and they retain it)

For those of us in the older age group, this was always the way, and it didn't necessarily do us any harm.

I agree that getting someone interested first, will get better results.

In the arduino stuff I've done having them blink lights in the first lesson has worked to get them interested, before diving into the how and why.

"It's a hardware problem... No Damn it,, it is obviously a software problem "

We also have that with our network people, ".. its your network, no its your program .."

So can we see that with interference.

"... its your RaspberryPi .... no its your overly sensitive pacemaker ..."

mark

while you can teach things by rote there's little real value in that.

Funnily enough my teacher wife and another have worked out the results are hugely better by teaching new entrants the times table using rote learning.( .. and they retain it)

For those of us in the older age group, this was always the way, and it didn't necessarily do us any harm.

I agree that getting someone interested first, will get better results.

In the arduino stuff I've done having them blink lights in the first lesson has worked to get them interested, before diving into the how and why.

"It's a hardware problem... No Damn it,, it is obviously a software problem "

We also have that with our network people, ".. its your network, no its your program .."

So can we see that with interference.

"... its your RaspberryPi .... no its your overly sensitive pacemaker ..."

mark